


An undocumented tale

by Alphariusisaloyalist



Series: Series of documented event's [1]
Category: Ace Combat, Destiny (Video Games), Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Apologizes for how the chapters look compared to each other, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, POV First Person, POV Third Person, Spoilers for beyond light although it's mostly places and not any main events, The pov might change depending on if the author and beta-reader decides it's nessecary, maybe a wee bit of xenophobia, references to filk songs
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-15
Updated: 2021-02-24
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:33:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 17,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26962207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alphariusisaloyalist/pseuds/Alphariusisaloyalist
Summary: The first part of planned work that might span throughout the mid half of the reef wars and maybe Andromeda
Relationships: Eramis/Original guardian (destiny), Other Relationship Tags to Be Added
Series: Series of documented event's [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1984286
Kudos: 3





	1. An uneventful evening

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first major work that I've taken a liking to that I believe is good enough to post, I had this thought about the Eramis the kell of house of darkness way before beyond light was announced and how a group of dredgens who started hunting down their old comrades on Europa accidentally finding the House of Eramis. So I finally decided to just write down what's been in my head and what I've already wrote down in an outline and create a story with it. In this story ghost's can act as a translator to help those who speak different languages meaning someone who speaks English could understand someone speaking Mandarin Chinese.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Originally this chapter was going to have it open with the reporter asking a question to Sokolov instead but my beta-reader suggested changing it to this. I like the way it turned out but if anyone who reads it has any suggestions I'll take em and try to improve the work.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> {} = Eliksni of House Eramis speaking  
> <> = Eliksni of House Wolves speaking  
> <<>> = Anyone speaking over com's  
> "" = Humanoid races (Exo,Awoken,Asari,ext)
> 
> This is my first real work so I don't know how it turned out from a non biased point but I hope y'all like it. Paragraph 3 is a rather large paragraph I know but splitting it didn't feel right so I've kept it the same.

| Kaliks-Fel, 2135AD,2157CE. Sokolov’s pov |   
As the four of us walked to what we called an “elevator” even though it’s more of a personal teleporter for the crew to move around the Kaliks-Fel (or Orbiks-Fel depending on which Eliksni of house wolf that you asked). I kept thinking about why we allowed this Asari journalist almost full access to areas of our ship. The ceasefire and peace treaties between the House of Wolves, House Eramis and the Reef had just shortly been signed and some unknown alien race we’ve never seen before shows up out of nowhere in our system and now we’re letting them have free range of our ships? The sound of matter being broken into small enough information to be transmated to the living deck broke me out of my stupor “Hey Patrick do you mind showing our guest how to use the transmat machine?” I asked my friend before stepping onto the pad myself and transmating over to the housing unit of the Kalisk-Fel. As the two of us waited for Patrick and the Asari journalist I wanted to ask my wing-mate what he thought of our new team but it wasn’t long before the two transmated over to our area. “You said your name was Aeessma T'loios wasn’t it?” Patrick asked before I could even open my mouth to ask for them to follow me to our quarters. “Yes, but most of my co-workers in the Citadel News Network just call me Aeessma though.” She replies with a smile. My face constricts into a sneer behind my mask at how obnoxious she sounded when she said that but I keep my mouth shut, it wouldn’t leave a good impression on the Houses if the people sent to answer questions for her snapped at everything she did.

“I suggest following me unless you want to barge into some baron or baronesses room.” I explained as I started walking down the deck to the room where most of the soldiers from House Eramis reside, as we walked alongside the wall so that crew ferrying supplies to and from could get through. The journalist stayed quiet the entire time writing things down on what looked to be a dataslate, we got to the room rather quickly seeing as how many people were transporting supplies around. Patrick was about to open the door only to be met by a rather energetic dreg named Evelvys {You guys are late... What’s with the blue girl?} She asked looking straight at the journalist , I broke out in laughter which earned me a death glare from Evelvys. {She’s a journalist for something called the “Citadel News network” apparently wanting to know about what’s going on in our solar system.} Larry replied, the first time he’s talked today after Kell Skolas gave us orders to show the journalist to the quarters taken up by members of House Eramis. “Guys, guys. Let’s talk in a language that her translator can translate, yes? Also lets have this conversation inside of the room instead of out in the open where there’s people walking around with supplies.” I asked as we started making our way into the housing unit, drawing the many eyes of the other Eliksni members of the Garm squadron.    


{Are we going to be babysitting this alien while the four of you go take down that awoken base?}The captain named Vekryn asked, anger clear in his voice, a rumble of agreement coming from the other Eliksni in the room. I slowly walk over to where we kept the human foodstuff and drinks, picking up a packet of instant coffee I reply with {It depends on if Kell Skolas wants us to continue answering questions for her. Or if he wants us to make sure she’s not in cahoots with the Reef or the Last City.} Putting the coffee bag into the rehydrator and turning it on, I turn around to lean on the counter nearby waiting for it to get finished, moving a hand up to my face I take off the mask that has been on my face all morning, rubbing the rheum out of my eyes, moving my head to look at Aeessma I ask “Did you really have to arrive during one of the few day’s we get off? Don’t answer, it was a rhetorical question. So the only thing that I’ve been told is that you’ll have questions to ask of me and my buddies isn't that right?" She looks stunned, like she didn't expect me to ask such a question, I give her a half-smile before turning back around to get the coffee packet before it melts. Turning back around to stare at her it looks like she finally got out of her stupor enough to answer my question "Yes, that's the reason why my boss sent me to this system in the first place. The citadel navy have been watching this system closely for the past few years, at first it was just a single probe sent in from the relay that got destroyed or lost, then it was a ship gone missing after making a jump through it, and now it’s the ship signatures of the Wolves.” That caught the attention of not only myself but almost all the other people in the room, seeing some of the Eliksni members looking at each other before the dreg named Evelvys gathered enough courage to ask the journalist {So your “Citadel” has known about us for how long?} It was easy to see that Aeessma couldn’t understand so I chose to translate what she said “She asked how long the citadel has known about us for how long exactly? And if so why haven’t they shown up to try and help?” Her head turned from looking at Evelvys back to me and I could tell by the look in her eye’s that she expected one of us to ask that “There’s been a lot of turmoil in council politics of whether or not to disable the relay leading into your system or to try and send an expeditionary fleet through to establish contacts. I hope you can understand our hesitancy to help when people are killing each-other daily.” There’s going to be a back and forth conversation here I can already tell, I’m starting to like this journalist more than I suspected, compared to the journalist s in the last city this one actually had the spirit to say the truth. “Now to get into my first question. Why did you engage in unrestricted warfare against the Reef and its people? A Lot of civilian blood is on your hands, you know?”


	2. An Undocumented Tale Part 1 | Chapter 2. The flight of the Pepsi Mig-31 |Or an eventful evening part 2.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> {} = Eliksni of House Eramis speaking  
> <> = Eliksni of House Wolves speaking  
> <<>> = Anyone speaking over com's  
> "" = Humanoid races (Exo,Awoken,Asari,ext)
> 
> On this episode of An Undocumented Tale. The journalist gets some answers. The boy's and girls of Garm squadron/Fireteam Garm goes on a raid. some. And Sokolov might be planning a murder.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I completely forgot to mention that Sokolov had gloves on in the previous chapter but I'm too lazy to go back and change it so I've just added it here.

“Now to get into my first question. Why did you engage in unrestricted warfare against the Reef and its people? A Lot of civilian blood is on your hands, you know?” That question bothered me, if this is considered unrestricted by citadel standards what do their restricted wars look like, something comes to my mind that I ask “If you see this as an unrestricted war, what does restricted warfare look like? This is tame compared to what other houses do during warfare.” Some of the other’s nodded in agreement, and others still annoyed at the first question. I swear you could see her eyes spark with excitement before she answered, “Most battles take place in orbit taking out the enemy’s capability to evacuate and resupply, then the ground forces sweep what remains of the ground army’s up. Simple really compared to what I’ve seen of footage of combat between the Reef and the Houses.” It seems as if there are those of us who record the battles we fight, that should’ve been expected “But you haven’t answered my question yet.” I nod my head and answer back “We engaged in what you call “Unrestricted warfare” against the Awoken people because of the crimes they've committed against both the Eliksni and Human population of the sol system, anyone they see as trespassing on “their clay” they either take them captive to do something with them or just kill them off. They’re the reason why I have two sets of arm’s like the Eliksni do” I remove the gloves covering my hands and reveal metal augments, moving my second pair of limbs up to my chest and rolling my wrists.  
  
It looks like she just now noticed my second pair of arms and the fact that I had gloves on “Did you now just notice that I had more than two hands?” I start laughing “Most people don’t notice them at first either it’s always the gear they take note of, is it the bright white and blue’s of the armor compared to the obsidian black of the implants that caught your eyes?” The chitter of Eliksni laughter made me smile, the journalist opened and closed her mouth a couple times before she finally put words together, “What did the awoken do to cause this much damage? Nobody has ever seen such heavy augmentation even with the worst of fighting.” Playing with my right wrist trying to figure a way to explain what happened “Someone I used to run with while I was a dredgen, the easiest way to explain to you would be a servant of the darkness, and in a language forgotten by most meaning “The eternal abyss”. The awoken somehow got one of my old buddies that went by the title of “Dredgen Mørke” meaning Eternal darkness, under their thumb. Either by bribing him, threatening him or by blackmailing him we still don’t know. But he got me good, real good, didn’t even suspect him to have had a knife forged with something capable of killing a guardian permanently, bastard cut my hands clean off. Not even being resurrected by my ghost, Zexvo could they be reattached, fucker ran off once Larry and Patrick reached up with me.” She looks... upset? I still don’t know how to completely read her face yet, but that face looks like one of pity.   
  
Captain Vekryn walked over to us, fire burning in his eyes. {Kell Skolas and Kell Eramis sent word to get you, they want you and your team to meet up with them in the communications room, they said it’s urgent.} I look back at Patrick and Larry barking orders “Get yourselves geared and move! I’m sorry miss T’loios but it seems as if your questions will have to wait for later. Evelvys get yourself geared up as-well this will be your first real mission.” Not waiting for a reply I make my way out of the room, the hallway is even more packed now with people moving around the decks via teleportation pads or just by simply going up the ladders. Evelvys passes me and catches up to both Patrick and Larry, picking my speed up to catch up with the others. Putting my gloves back on as I walk behind them {What’s gotten the crew of the Kaliks-Fel so riled up? It looks like we’re about to be put into battle stations at any given time!} Patrick nearly shouts out, stopped only by the fact that it would be indecent. It’s easy to notice how most of the crew are jumpy yet I don’t have time to ask any of them why, Evelvys puts her right hand on Patricks shoulder before saying {It can’t be that bad if they aren’t already at battle stations and the ships not on total alert now is it?} Clearly trying to calm him down before he makes a fool of himself, {She’s right you know?} Larry starts {If it was something like a raid from the awoken the crew would already be at their stations. Don’t get too jumpy now, jumpy gets you killed in work like ours.} Patrick pats her hand before she moves it back to her side, making our way over to the pad takes what feels like hours even though it’s only a couple of minutes. Transmating over to the communication deck the four of us turn the corner to get to the room itself, reaching the door, I push it open and wait for the other three to enter the room before I enter it.   
  
The meeting hasn’t started yet clearly, there were still people rushing around to fill all the seats, Patrick and Evelvys move over to the corner of the room to set up for briefing, Larry and I walk over to the Kells and a couple of the barrons. <Kell Skolas.> I say while bowing, turning my head I look at Eramis and my father Valentyn, {Mother, Father, I hope we aren’t too early and or too late.} I wait until Kell Skolas acknowledges my bow with the wave of his hand until I get back up. A couple more people enter the room, one that I’ve had the pleasure of working with, even if he was a merc, an exo standing near him wearing the same war mantis set as he was but for some reason had cat ears? You know what I’m not even going to question this, I’ve seen worse. Kell Skolas looks just as stunned as I was but gets back into serious mode and calls out <Get to your seats so that this briefing is over quicker.> I raise my hand and he nods at me <Why are you here personally instead of in your throne room? Normally briefing isn’t your job.> I ask and he nods again <You’re correct this isn’t my job,but I chose to be here instead of reading the transcripts on the throne.> I nod in understanding and turn my attention back to the screen. Valentyn takes the floor, {There’s been a change of plans, your assault on the facility located on Neptune has been canceled, you now have a new target to deal with, one that you, Sokolov, will love to take out. A reef expeditionary group is being led by Dredgen Mørke, Apparently there was a human colony located out in the Oort Crater on Pluto connecting to the K. Edgeworth Crater, we do not know much more besides the fact that there’s a small group of Galliot fighters that are roaming around the area. It’ll be your job to mop them up and then land to see what’s happening on the ground. Before you ask, yes you’ll be paid double for this job, any questions?} I raise my hand like a child at school, he indicated for me to ask with his hand {Do you expect Mørke to be captured alive?} He just simply shakes his head. Patrick is next to raise his hand, {Wouldn’t this more so be a job for the silent fang, just get in and get out without being caught?} Kell Skolas chucks at that bit before responding for Valentyn <And not let your captain have all the fun of getting revenge on the man who docked him?> Skolas looks around the room before looking back at Valentyn, nodding his head for him to continue. He does {I forgot to mention that you will have little support on this mission, we want to be-able to deny any assistance in your assault. Those of you in Garm will be flying the prototype star fighter R-352 Sepia, and the other two are going to be flying in a... Mikoyan Mig-31, a pre-golden age relic... and with a pepsi color scheme. I hope this is just a translation error and you’re not actually flying this.}

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My beta reader wanted to be-apart of the story in some part so I gave him a minor/major roll in the story as a mercer, there's a running joke in our friend group that anything he does has to have a cat-girl gf included in it.


	3. An Undocumented Tale Part 1 | Chapter 3. The ride never ends |Or Ruins are dangerous

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Garm actually goes on the raid, Sokolov might get revenge, and a couple of mercenaries get paid more than they expected.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> {} = Eliksni of House Eramis speaking  
> <> = Eliksni of House Wolves speaking  
> <<>> = Anyone speaking over com's  
> "" = Humanoid races (Exo,Awoken,Asari,ext)  
> '' = ghost's talking with their guardians

Kell Eramis takes the floor {You all understand what your mission is. Garm 1 hang back while the other's report to the hangar, everyone else, dismissed.} Staying seated, I wait until everyone has left before standing up, looking behind me to confirm that everyone left I turn back around to look at the other's, using the wolf dialect <What’s so important that I have to stay behind while the others get ready to sortie?> I ask respectfully, not wanting to slight the Kells, my Father pulls out a small data-slate with a map before tossing it my way, catching it I give it a look over only to notice a set of ruins marked as a high value area. <Some of our scouts have been on Pluto for a while, hunting down anything we can use to try and find the lost colony, both Clovis Bray corp and Gr ünder Industries co developed, you and your squads secondary objective is to try and figure out anything you can from the marked buildings. Anything you think the splicers would enjoy getting their hands on, give it to them, anything you find that you want to keep you keep yada yada yada, you know the rules of scavenging.> Nodding my head I get ready to leave before I hear another voice. {If you can, try and bring him back alive so he can face trial, if not make his death quick. No reason for you to fall back into your old habits now is there?} Nodding to my mother I step out of the room.   


I reach the hangar rather quickly, with all the eliksni still running around. There’s a bunch of skiffs that aren’t in use currently parked alongside one another, noticing my fellow pilots crowding around planes that looked like cruise missiles made for people to fly in. {Hey boss, have you ever heard about these types of planes?} Patrick calls out once I get closer to them {If these are what we got from that data cache we got off of those fools on 3 Juno i’ll be happy about how that mission went.} I chuckle at how energetic Patrick sounds, like a child getting a new toy. Walking over to the closest non claimed one I step onto the first rung of the ladder “This plane is so strange, these can’t be designed for atmo fighting or at least constant atmo travel.” I think to myself, pressing the button that says “Open canopy” the thing almost instantly slides open, not even lifts up like most others, just slid down the frame. Hopping off the Sepia, I gesture for the other’s to form up, the mercenaries being the last to arrive. {You two have flown with us before but we’ve gotten a new squad member seeing as how the last one was eviscerated so I’ll have you introduce yourselves to our new rookie.}Looking at Frost I gesture to him to talk {My eliksni’s rusty so don’t expect much out of it, My name is Frost, I’m a mercenary working for House Eramis currently as you can tell, my weapon system operator here is named Paragon.} The exo bows after he says her name, switching over to english he says “I want to know how much this job pays us, and you’ve never stopped us after a briefing to introduce us to one another, that’s always in flight. So I want to know what our secondary objective is.” Looking at him I crack a smile, pulling a bag of glimmer out and tossing it at him, he catches it by a thread. Looking inside I could tell he was surprised at how much glimmer was in it, “I’ll answer your question once we near the planet, it’s nothing bad but... I’d rather we not have any listeners, you get me?”   
  
Walking back to the Sepia I started climbing up the crew ladder, getting into the pilot seat of the craft everything looks different from what I’m used to. The information screen is on the left hand side but it doesn’t include the missiles on it, only fuel and ammo, and the missiles are shown on the right side of the cockpit? Who designs such a confusing system for pilots to fly with? ‘I’m linking your hud up to the sepia’s systems, how did the awoken expect their pilots to fly these things with all the counters being in random places?’ Closing the canopy I nod acknowledging Zexvo, even though I’m pretty sure that she already knew before I did so, switching over to the communication channel that members of Garm squadron uses, making sure the radios work, I say <<And I can give you~>> I stop to allow someone else to finish the sentence. <<Free fall and other delights. There’s no way for our radios to not work when our ghosts act as transmitters you dumbass.>> Larry states before continuing <<We should run the flight checks two or maybe even three times with these crafts. Like we normally should do when flying with new planes.>> Letting my ghost take over the flight checks I pull the map out and give it another look ‘The plane’s ready to launch, all you need to do is ask me to send the word to the Kell’s and they'll start the sortie.’ ‘Send it please.’ I ask her before the hangar’s bay opens up, hopping onto the comms again. <<Follow me and stay radio silent, at least until we’re clear of the Kaliks, got it?>> <<Copy you tovarisch, I’ll follow your lead.>> Starting the engine and pushing the throttle stick all the way up, the almost instant acceleration shocks me, even with how advanced the ADFX-01 is, it still takes a few seconds to accelerate, I start grinning just thinking about how much mischief we could get into with these.   
  
Flying out of the hanger I enter the flightpath for the Oort crater onto the plane’s autopilot,’The field manual Valentyn’s ghost sent us said the Sepia could reach mach 15 and higher if it’s afterburners are used, although it will cause a flameout if you fly that fast for a long time. So let’s not do that, yes?’ Zexvo asks at the end before I smile, I’ll have to ask her later how she always knows when I’m thinking of something like that.  
  
The trip over to Pluto was actually fairly quiet, no enemy fighters showed to slow us down, no missiles being fired at us from behind or from ahead, <<So you wanted to know our secondary objective Frost?>> <<Both of us want to know what our secondary objective is, not just Frost.>> Paragon interjects <<Ok, ok. Our secondary objective is to find out what information we can about a colony co-developed by the Clovis Bray corporation and Gründer Industries.>> The comms were silent for a couple of minutes before Larry’s voice could be heard <<So you’re telling me that this is just another fucking information grabbing job? The last one went to hell the second we left the station, if this job ends the same way I’m going to get pissed.>> Me and Patrick gave a grunt of agreement over the radio. <<We’ve got contact about 5 klicks away, looks like about 5/6 galliot class fighters. Orders boss?>> Evelvys asks, <<Let’s try out some of the features on these crafts. The field manual states that the plasma launchers can keep a lock on a target for up to 20 kilometers so open fire mates.>> With that said I started locking onto the galliot that looked the most exposed out of all six. I track the purplish glow of the plasma bolt being sent towards the fighter, the second it makes contact with the ship it starts burning up, something burning at 45,000 degrees even in space can start a fire it seems. Another two galliots went down before they realized what was happening. I watch as an actual missile instead of plasma goes after a galliot, the ship tries to bank hard enough to break the lock but it’s clear a second later that it was already too late as the missile slams into the back of the craft. A second R-60 flies into the last galliot, the craft being simply eviscerated as the continuous-rod warhead does it’s job. <<Frost, Paragon and Larry, you three stay up here and keep an eye out for any reef support. The frequency jammers should be doing their job of preventing outside communications from leaving the dwarf planet, but with the reef you never know if they’ll just show up anyways.>> Getting an acknowledgement from all three of them I hop back onto the comms <<Pluto’s atmosphere isn’t like earth’s so expect the worst, hope for the best, It’ll be around -230 celsius or -446 fahrenheit on the surface so we need to get in and get out as fast as we can, As far as we know the ruins use some sort of paracausal device to keep it warm enough for a human to survive and thrive. You eliksni are tough so you should be-able to handle it,>>   
  
The heat inside the cockpit as we descended was hell, you could tell there was less gravity than that of earth, yet enough to try and force the nose of the Sepia down. I manage to barely save myself from a flat spin, getting the plane stable enough to effectively control, I continue my descent down to the surface of Pluto, watching as the others follow me but with a lot more luck than I had, neither one of them flat-spinned. Finding a straight path of ground to land on, I change my trajectory to match, setting the plane down on the ground is easier said than done, going too fast risked either crashing into the ground or the landing gear to be damaged, going too slow could end up with it stalling and crashing or it just crashing into the ground as-well. Landing and popping open the canopy I start getting out before being blasted by the cold, the other two haven’t opened their canopies yet, clambering out of the cockpit I was glad that my armor was somewhat keeping me warm, without it I would be freezing like a popsicle, the other two join me shortly. {We’re only 100 meters away from the ruins, you can see them now. Keep your weapons armed and ready,} Without any questions or objections we make our way over to the ruins, seeing them in person instead of seeing them from photos and stories from others is much more impressive and imposing than some might think, “We have to come back here another time. Perhaps in another season when it’s not so traveler damned cold?” I state while pushing on, a bullet whizzes by my head forcing me to drop to the ground, Pulling the modified NTW-20 off my back I shout “Weapons free, get to cover!” Rolling into the hole that was luckily right next to me I scan the ruins directly ahead. Spotting the glint of a scope right behind one of the ruined windows, loading the magazine filled with 20x82mm rounds I put where my eye would be behind my mask to the scope and breath in, breathing out I slowly put pressure on the trigger until the bark of the rifle firing and the sound of concrete shattering, {Did I get them?} I shout out to the other two, {They’re down, saw the rifle drop out of the window, good shot.} Patrick yelled out, my ears still ringing from the sound of my rifle going off, the sound protection of the helmet wasn’t working as it should be, laying down nearly twenty millimeters away from the rifle.  
  
Getting out of the hole, I dust myself off, ears ringing like hell, {Remind me to never fire this gun again without two sets of ear protection please. This hurts like hell, did you catch what type of rifle that marksman had Patrick?} I ask not expecting an actual answer {It looked like a “Her Benevolence” or maybe “Her Fury”? It was one of the rifles carried by the Vestian Guard.} {The vestian guard, here?! That means they are expanding their border out.} Evelvys exclaims, the both of us nod in agreement, pointing the barrel of my rifle towards the ruins in a “let’s continue moving” motion, I set off with the other’s behind me. Entering the ruins it felt so much cooler, switching from my NTW over to the heavily outdated but still effective M4A1 carbine, pulling the charging handle back and chambering a round, I take point, the hallways of the colony is almost completely empty, save for the skeleton laying or slouched against a wall every now and then. Finding an information hub, I break off from the group and move over to one of the non damaged databases. Keeping Zexvo hidden, I pull out a data-slate designed to pull information out from golden age data caches/banks. That is until I’m slammed into a wall breaking through it. “Dredgen Mørke if we don’t meet again. And working for the awoken as well? You’ve really fallen far from the low hanging tree haven’t you?” I taunt the man who currently has me pinned to the wall with a piece of rebar. “Says the man working for the aliens who want to kill all of us “Dredgen hunter”.” He sneers at me as he yanks my helmet off. Trying to pull myself off the bar. I only make my wound worse, causing him to laugh harder than he already was. Spotting my M4A1 on the table, motioning with my eyes for Patrick to pick it up and use it against Mørke, he does, the bark of the rifle going off, leather and flesh ripping and the smell of sulfur burned my nose, Mørke went down after the third bullet punched threw his makeshift leather armor.   
  
Patrick sprinted over to me and helped get me down from the wall, still bleeding out of the small hole left by the rebar, with the help of both Patrick and Evelvys, I slowly make my way over to where Mørke lies, slowly bleeding out from the wounds dealt by Patrick. “By the traveler, already on the floor from three bullets? And you call yourself a dredgen? You’re nothing but an embarrassment to other actual dredgens. Let’s just leave him to his demise, not worth wasting another bullet on him.” {Did we get everything we could from the databanks?} I ask as we slowly make our way out of the information hub, Zexvo slowly floating around the three of us, I can feel the bleeding slowly stop and I slowly lose consciousness. 


	4. An Undocumented Tale Part 2 | Chapter 1/2. Pre-party is fun until you have to go drunk | Or the start of a rocky Monday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sokolov wakes up nearly a day after being injured from Mørke, Eramis and Valentyn check up on him and invite him to a party while talking about what the daily life on Europa currently. This is more of a family oriented chapter before the party which may take up the entirety of next chapter or might be apart of the short stories.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> {} = Eliksni of House Eramis speaking  
> <> = Eliksni of House Wolves speaking  
> <<>> = Anyone speaking over com's  
> "" = Humanoid races (Exo,Awoken,Asari,ext)

| Kaliks-Fel, 2135AD,2157CE. Sokolov’s pov |   
Slowly opening my eyes, I’m assaulted by the white and blues of the Kaliks medical bay, with my eyes slowly adjusting to the light, I try to sit up only to have a set of arms keep me still.<As your kind says, welcome back to the land of the living kid. You’ve been out for a couple of hours now.> The arms retract letting me sit up fully, groaning, I ask <How long exactly have I been out, Iboleks? And why exactly am I in the medbay, normally we’re just dumped on our cots if we can’t be resurrected instantly.> I can hear him chuckle before answering <The two kells and a baron suggested instead of being dumped on your bed, you were dropped somewhere with trained medical professionals, it seems you’ve gotten onto the good side of kell Skolas if he’s suggesting you be dumped here.> Sitting up fully and putting my left foot on the floor, I ask <Do I owe you any glimmer or anything?> Watching as Iboleks messes with one of the computers nearby, before turning his head to look at me <You owe me not getting shot again for the next week and a half, you got me?> Nodding I get off the bed, sending a message privately to Zexvo ‘How long have I been out exactly? Iboleks didn’t exactly tell me.’ walking down the hall she responds with ‘You’ve been out for around three to four hours, Larry and Patrick took over the meeting with Kell Eramis and Baron Valentyn, the two are still waiting for you to make a personal report though so I suggest moving with haste.’  
  
Jogging back to the crew deck was actually faster than it was jogging to the hangar bay, walking to the door of the barracks that we share reveals the room to be empty, walking over to the small area that I’ve claimed for myself, sifting through the bookshelf, that I share with Patrick for the box of cassettes tapes that I own. Finding the copy of St Elmo’s Fire I put it into the cassette player that I still had, sitting on the mat in front of my coffee table and closing my eyes. I start slowly pulling my solar and void energy out,opening my eyes to see that my golden gun had a purplish hue to the frame of the shock pistol, the void energy mixing with the solar energy, before it disappeared, trying it again but this time instead using the void as the base instead, instead of a normal nova bomb, the one I created was small and thin with a red tint mixing with the purple. Once again it disappeared a minute after I casted it, trying to summon the nova bomb again, I felt my light change before it suddenly stopped, ‘You’re over exerting yourself, trying to summon two supers instead of just one, you also have visitors and it’s not kind to keep people waiting.’

Clicking the cassette player off and turning around only to be met by the ceremonial armor of Eramis {Don’t pick me up like a children’s toy please!} she didn’t listen of course { Watch my ribs!} I can barely hear Valentyn laugh with my face pressed against Eramis’s chest, {Leave the kid alone, I don’t think he needs you choking him to death with how hard you’re holding him, hon.} she lets me go and I fall backwards onto the carpet. {When Patrick said you were injured I didn’t think he said you were nearly permanently killed boy, don’t do that again!}  catching my breath, I open my mouth but I get cut off {You’re being removed from the mission roster until further notice, no arguments boy.} Nodding my head before asking {Are we still returning back to Europa to get the House of Wolves situated to where they’re not ship based? I’d love to get an actual break instead of being pulled off my freeday to get nearly killed, you know?} she chuckles before asking {Do you really want a break or do you just want to see Phylaks?} {W-what do you mean by that!?} {Don’t give me that look, I know everything that is sent between members of the house, even private conversations sent over the communication net.} My cheeks flush while both of them and Zexvo laugh at my expense.   
  
Coughing into my fist to get their attention, I ask {Is there anything else to this house call or is it just that?} Shaking her head before answering {This is more of a formality but you and your squad are invited to join us in a party with the kell and baron/baronesses of the House of Wolves, The journalist will be there too, and I know how much you like Journalists, which is why I’m asking you to go.} nodding my head she continues { Honestly I thought you weren’t going to accept the invitation just because of that, I’m pleasantly surprised. The party starts in a couple of hours so if you don’t mind us staying here and chatting if that's alright with you?} Waving my hand over to where the couches are, before standing up and stretching. Walking over to them, taking a packet of Lucky Strikes cigarettes out of my coat pocket and taking one of the cigarettes before tossing the pack towards Valentyn only to have him toss it right back, {You know I don’t smoke.} Lighting the cigarette and putting it to my mouth, only for it to shortly be grabbed away from me, along with the packet. 

{Thought you promised to give that up, didn’t you?} Sighing {I did, I did. But habits die hard you know?} Walking with them over to the couches and sitting down, I lay my head back onto the back of the sofa. {I’ll take a couple days before we reach Europa, we can’t exactly warp between the planets due to the reef and the last city. Your father’s pet project the “Kilimanjaro'' is scheduled to finish production the day we arrive, you and the rest of Galm are going to be assigned to the Kilimanjaro, Phylaks will be as well, so don’t you worry about not getting time to spend with her.} {Why is Phylaks going with us?} {The Kilimanjaro isn’t just a regular ship, it’s also a troop transport. We’re planning on making ourselves known to the council so we need everyone we can incase it goes wrong and we have another war on our hands.} I can tell how tiresome this war is for her from her voice, others in the House of Wolves have the same tone. 

Running a hand throughout my hair while saying {Let’s not worry about any possible war happening, we already have a war going on.} trying to change the subject, I ask {How’s life on Europa currently? I know news can take a while to reach back and forth so I haven’t actually heard anything big go down on the comms. Oh do you guys want any drinks, before I forget to ask?} {Do you have anything alcoholic? There’ll only be eliksni drinks at the party and us humans can’t exactly digest the stuff like we can with ether.} Nodding, I get up and walk over to the counter, opening up the cupboard above it to reveal that only half of the alcohol rations remained. “Damn rats, can’t keep their filthy paws off me drinks.” {What was that?} {I was complaining about how half of our alcohol rations are gone and we haven't even finished the first bottle, before we went on the raid.} {You mean to tell me that you guys are already almost out of alcoholic drinks before we were even halfway close to the estimated time it would take to finish this campaign?} {It’s not my fault if we have so many people compared to the bottles, not like I could’ve done anything while I was stuck in those damned dreams.} Pulling out two bottles of vodka, one expensive and one cheap, I pour out two glasses worth. Leaving the bottles out and walked back over with glasses in hand.   
{Here’s your drink old man} I say while passing him his glass {The darkness tried to influence one of the youths, luckily nothing happened to him but still. It’s trying to corrupt those it sees as weak willed and those who will listen to it’s promises without a second thought. We’ve also dug deeper into the ice blocking Bray Exoscience so that we can get in there and learn more about the creation of exos.} Taking a sip of my drink and mulling over the thought that I’ve had for a while {Do you think we could try and get this “Council” to give us another world, one that doesn’t have as much corruption as Europa does? I get that the house has lived under the ice for hundreds of thousands of years, seeing humanity come from caves to setting colonies up on different planets but still, shouldn’t we try to get people out of the danger?} {That will be hard to do when most if not all of us want to stay and fight the darkness to the bitter end, Europa is our home and we will not lose it to some power trying to play god!} {I get that, I honestly do but there are still children on Europa that would be better off not being there if any confrontation happens, the darkness already beat humanity once and we had A.I designed for endless war.} {Rasputin wasn’t designed for endless war, he was designed for defense of the colonies... Okay more so earth than it’s colonies, but he did his job, that is until he went dark.} Sighing, I take another sip of my drink and notice that Valentyn’s glass was empty. {If you want a refill you’re going to have to do it yourself, I’m not getting back up. What exactly is this “Kilimanjaro'' that's being worked on, and why haven’t I heard about it before now?}Valentyn pulls out one of those old blueprints and tosses it at me, taking a quick look at it makes my jaw drop at the estimated combat abilities it had.   
  
“Bozhe moi, do we really need a ship with that many cannons? 2 spinal mounted cannons, 16 135° 120mm autocannons, 11 50mm railguns and a hell of a lot of point defense weapons. No missiles?” taking a longer look at the design, I notice how large the hangar is, estimated to be-able to carry up to 150 f-332 Sepia’s, 25 A-331 Sepia’s and 5 B-320 Sepia’s, “There’s different types of the Sepia?” {Which is why we don’t have any missiles on the ship, the B-320 can be armed with both air to ship missiles, torpedoes or nuclear weapons if the situation calls for it.} Looking at Valentyn straight in his eyes, about to say something, before I’m cut off {Nukes? Where do we even have nukes at, especially ones small enough to be fitted onto a craft.} A smile breaks out on his face and I could tell none of us would like the answer {You let me figure that out.} looking down at his wristwatch he looks back at us {We have thirty minutes before the party starts, get your ceremonial armor on, I’m going to finish off that bottle of vodka} Groaning I ask Zexvo to transmat the armor I had made out.


	5. An Undocumented Tale Part 2 | Chapter 3/4. Time flyes when you're havin rum | A party and newly ressed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A quick explanation of some events during the golden age, a drinking challenge and the resurrection of one of the Shepards.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> {} = Eliksni of House Eramis speaking  
> <> = Eliksni of House Wolves speaking  
> <<>> = Anyone speaking over com's  
> "" = Humanoid races (Exo,Awoken,Asari,ext)

{Where is the party taking place at?} finishing up by tying my boot laces. {In the mess hall, there’ll likely be lower ranks in there as well seeing as how they deserve a break as well} Sending a message to the rest of the squad on where to meet, standing up I test how the boots feel to walk in. {These boots are nice and all, but I must say, the gold and brown colours? They're not for me, no siree.} Walking around for a couple more seconds while listening to the distinct clacking sound {These would serve good as a psychological weapon I believe, although having people rise from the grave and continue to kill already serves as one.} Walking over to the cupboards and looking for the bottles of kvass and kompot that we still had. Pulling out one of the leather bags that we had in storage, I put a couple of the bottles in it. Slinging the bag over my shoulder and making sure it wouldn’t fall off. {I’ll meet you guys at the party.} 

Walking out of the room and turning right, continuing down to where the elevator is. Making my way down to the mess hall, I could smell the sweet, sweet smell of ether before I even reached the door. Waiting around for a few minutes for the other’s, I decided to just walk in. Finding Larry with a bag just like mine and the reporter talking while Patrick and Evelvys mingle with some of the Dregs of the other house. Moving over to where Larry and Aeessma were talking I could overhear their conversation“Patrick told me that the dredgen caught Sokolov with his guard down, pinning him to a nearby wall.” making sure that neither of them noticed me I walk right up behind them and wait for the perfect timing “Now he didn’t let that stop him from putting Mørke in the ground, casting a nova bomb and disintegrating him-” Breaking out in laughter from the clear lie being told, I can hardly stop to try and set the story straight “It was actually Patrick that put him into his grave, not me. And I definitely didn’t cast a nova bomb to kill him.” looking at Aeessma before continueing “The dredgen had me pinned to a wall and was taunting me, Patrick came up from behind and shot him in the back with my own gun, we left him to bleed out for his troubles.” Backing up and walking over to the nearby table, I put the bag of drinks onto it.   
Pulling out one of the bottles and an assortment of glasses to go with it, putting them onto the table and making sure that they aren’t in the way of anyone else if they chose to sit at our table. Waving over the other two while Larry puts his bag onto the table, not touching it after that. “What’d you bring?” moving over to the bag and zipping it open reveals two boxes marked with old russian “How much food did you bring if it needed to be put in a box?” He laughs before answering my question “This is a party you know? Meaning people are going to get drunk and what is that drunk people normally complain about? Being hungry. So I thought why not bring enough food for at least most of the people here, I know most eliksni can’t stand human food but it’s there if they want it” Pulling out the box marked with kholodnyy I could feel the cold snapping at my fingers through the poorly insulated gloves. Putting it onto the table proper and cracking it open reveals a couple tubes of ice cream, a bowl of potato salad and a couple other foodstuffs in there. Doing the same with the box marked goryachiy only to find it filled with fully cooked stakes in plastic covering. “Why is it just steaks? There has to be more food from our rations than would work instead of just steak.”   
  
Valentyn walks in with a bag like mine slung over his shoulder, Eramis walking in right after, waving them over to our table. once they were over Valentyn unslung the bag nearly slamming it onto the table. Unzipping the bag reveals it to be full with more cooked mre’s and a couple bottles and a few glasses. Sighing, I opened my mouth only to get cut off again for what felt like the fifteenth time today {He insisted on bringing more drinks and wouldn’t listen when I told him no.} Setting all the food and drinks up to where it’s easy to reach as Kell Skolas and most of the barons walked in. Walking over and giving a quick bow before being told to rise, <You’re mission gave us more than just any random information, you’ve gotten us a glimmar mine. It turns out that the colony was used by the reef as some sort of information hub for a while, detailing every little action done by the reef, from killing that ship of humans on the station that brought House Eramis to our eyes. All the way to killing off an entire human settle-> <They did what?> <The reef destroyed a human settlement on an asteroid named “4 Vesta”, you humans come up with strange names you know?> Looking at Larry I motioned him over “I’ll need your hunter skills in a day or two.” <If this was given to say the titan vanguard we might be able to lessen casualties that we take during this war. Having more risen fighting instead of regular infantry would be a great boon. That is if they would even listen to me without shooting me on the spot.>

Slipping my hands into my pockets, before bowing to the kell once again and walking back to the table. Larry goes to the opposite side of it, while I sit down near the drinks. Grabbing one of the few bottles of green tea and popping it open, taking a sip and watching as the journalist talked the ear off of Patrick. Taking a look over at the door and seeing more and more members of the Wolves walking through, I could tell the party was about to be fully started. “Sokolov you know more about the darkness than I do, mind telling miss Aeessma the story of it?” Clearing my throat and starting “Before I tell you the story of how humanity collapsed, how about I tell you the story of the golden age? It isn’t as interesting as the collapse but it is nearly just as important.” lowering my voice and trying to make myself sound more like a narrator I begin “The Golden Age was sparked by the arrival of the Traveler during the late 21st Century. When it arrived in the Solar System and began terraforming the different planets, humanity reached out to the Traveler on Mars and made first contact. It taught humanity new powers and mystical technologies that led to this age. Now that most of the system could support human life, and armed with the incredible new technology to reach beyond Earth, colonization of these worlds began. Many corporations and research groups existed during the Golden Age, such as Clovis Bray or the Ishtar Collective.” pausing for that added dramatic effect “And the Ahamkara appeared.”  
  
|Somewhere in the Russian cosmodrome. 2135AD,2157CE. Unnamed pov|   
“Guardian... Guardian... Eyes up guardian!” opening my eyes slowly and adjusting to the pitch blackness of the night, the floating metallic orb continues to speak “It worked, you’re alive! You don’t know how long I’ve been looking for you, we’re in fallen territory, it’s not safe here and I have to get you to the city, hold still real quick.” And just like that the thing was gone, I have so many questions floating through my head. Where am I, who am I, what happened to me? ‘Don’t worry, I’m still here, I know you must have a lot of questions but those have to wait. We need to move, and fast. Head towards that old wall ahead of you and we’ll talk more there.’ Flexing my hands and feeling around the strange armor plating that I had on, I found a flashlight, memories of my past life coming back to me but not enough to fully tell what happened. Checking out the flashlight and groaning once I see the hand crank on it, I decide to just crank it enough to see where I’m going. ‘Run now! There's a large amount of fallen converging on your position, get to that complex now!’ Doing as he says and running between the cars lining the path of the road. Sliding on my ass as a bullet goes over my head I manage to get inside of the wall and the door shuts behind me, finding a rifle and picking it up. 

Pulling back the charging handle and seeing a round come flying out. Picking it up and putting it into my chest rig ‘I know you have a lot of questions for me, and many that I can’t answer. I’ll start with the basics, I’m a ghost, more importantly, I’m your ghost now. You’ve been dead for a long, long while. You’re bound to see some things that you won’t understand.’ “Wh-” breaking out into a coughing fit before trying again “How did this all happen? Last I remember was getting ordered to keep the refugees moving so that the exodus ships could escape. What happened?” ‘I can’t answer that, that’s something a warlock or a cryptarch could tell you. I’m sorry.’ Signing I decide to try and learn more about my surroundings. ‘There’s a locked gate over to the left of us, take a look around while I try and get the power back on, it should be quick.’ Walking over to the ledge and looking down I swear I could see what looked like eyes staring right back at me. Along with another human who looks just like me holding one of them down. 

  
| Kaliks-Fel, 2135AD,2157CE. Sokolov’s pov |  
“The darkness has hounded both eliksni and humankind for the past hundreds of thousands of years, just with humanity the traveler didn’t leave us. None of us knows why it hasn’t left us yet, our history during the dark ages is just as dark as what the eliksni have done.” Watching as some of the eliksni grab a steak or two. Taking a drink of my tea, I think of what to continue with “During the dark age the first risen to be resurrected became ruthless warlords, instead of bringing peace, they brought chaos and anarchy. During this time a man named Radegast brought Saladin Forge, Perun and another risen named Joldern together to form the “Iron lords”. Over time this group gained more renown, enough to bring warlord Felwinter to their cause. I had the misfortune of earning their ire when I refused to force the people I called brothers and sisters to leave their houses for this “Last city” ” The heavy footfalls of an eliksni, forces me to pause, turning partly to look at who was coming, showing a baron carrying a couple bottles of whatever he was drinking. <I’ve heard that you can outdrink most, but can you outdrink someone who deals with alcohol everyday?> Having to stop myself from laughing so that I could answer him <Just cause you deal with an alcohol still means nothing! I’ll play but under one term, you match me, shot for shot.> Moving so that he could sit down, I grab the shot glasses that I brought and set them up.  
  
|Somewhere in the Russian cosmodrome. 2135AD, 2157CE. Unnamed POV|  
The alien being choked gives me a pleading look? Saying fuck it, I moved over to them and grabbed the person off of them, earning me an elbow to the chest knocking me off balance. The person turns around and just glares at me for a minute, before kneeling down and pulling me up by my chestpiece, the alien crawling over to the railing and waving something away. “Who the fuck do you think you are?” “Someone trying to save you from getting shot! Look around you woman, do you not notice all these eyes around us?” A fist comes close to my head but it stops just short of my nose. “You’ve changed. You were always the hard headed one, not the one who used his brains, you don’t even know what I’m talking about, do you brother?” Being dropped to the ground, I crawl backwards a small bit. Watching as the alien walks over, stopping just a couple meters short “As I was trying to say, before you started choking me out, our houses want no trouble with you or your people, please just listen to the offer I carry.” it reaches out for me and pulls me to my feet before continuing “House Eramis is looking for light bearers to help bring peace between our races, and unlike the last city you, wouldn’t just be getting paid to do so with knowing that you're fighting to make tomorrow better.” 

Trying to take a step backwards, I nearly trip but I’m stopped as the alien wraps their lower arm around my waist. A migraine killing all the possibility of coherent thought “What did you do to him!” I heard the lady nearly shout and I could feel the alien growl before hearing it’s voice “I did nothing to your brother! How would I even do anything to him while I was standing still!” My ghost reluctantly reveals himself and floats around me, doing something that looks like scanning. “He’s a stormcaller, only a couple of you exist, but I can’t figure out what’s happening to him.” I could feel the migraine receding somewhat, but it still felt like an icepick was being shoved into my head, turning to look the alien in the eyes “You say you fight to try and bring peace to our races? If that’s true then why haven’t you managed to bring said peace?” After making sure that I wasn’t going to fall over the alien lets go of me and moves backwards it answers “There’s a human saying that I think goes “The sins of the father is visited upon the sons” Nobody is willing to look past what a number of eliksni in the past did, they only see us as monsters. You two have a choice, you can help us try and bring an actual brighter future for both eliksni and humans. Or you can travel to the last city and help continue the cycle we’re in now. No matter what you choose, none of the eliksni here will attack you, unless you attack first.” My sister walks over and grabs my arms, pulling me away from the alien. “We’ve made up our mind’s we’re leaving”  
  
Shaking my head, I plant my feet into the ground and walk back over to the alien. “Sister we could do something great here, if they're telling the truth then we have the chance of stopping wars.” She sighs and turns back around, facing the now opened gateway. “You don’t know what the fallen are capable of Montgomery. I remember everything that happened, before our deaths, I remember watching one of them shoot you in the back before slicing you in half, I watched as you died trying to save a child that got separated from their parents during the fighting. You picked up one of their swords and challenged one to a duel and you got shot in the back and killed for it. Their race has no honor. Try and think back to Luna, when they torched our parents’ house, as they dragged our neighbors into the streets and executed them and how we were powerless to stop them. It will only happen again if you trust them.” The alien tries to bite back but I stop it, resting my hand on it’s shoulder and staring at my sister. “Everyone deserves a second chance, not all of them are like that, isn’t that clear? I don’t see any of them here readying a gun or a sword to kill us, do you? If this is where we must walk a separate path because of our ideas so be it, I hope the next time we meet we’ll be able to put this behind us.” She snarls as she walks to the hallway “I’d ask for you to follow me to the last city but I know you’ve made up your mind. I swear to you now, the next time we meet it won’t be over a bottle of wine.” As she walked away I’m not sure if I made the correct choice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was split between doing just one Shepard or two, and between if two of them existed if both would go down the same path, I like the way it turned out but of course I'm open to people criticizing it.


	6. An Undocumented Tale Part 2 | Chapter 5/6. A morning of surprises | An unexpected vision

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shepard meets the quartermaster and Sokolov has a vision.

‘I don’t agree with the choice you’ve made but I’ll stick by your side. Please don’t abuse my trust.’ I walk over to the railings, leaning onto it and looking down at the near bottomless pit below. “There’s so much for me to explain to you about our cause but there's so little time. I am baron Friknes, of what remains of the extinct House of Stone, now the House of Gold. We’ve worked for Eramis and her people for the past 130 years, yet only a couple lightbearers like you have accepted the offer of work. I’ll explain much more to you but there’s a number of people that you have to meet first. Follow me.” And follow him I did, what I thought were random ladders just strewn over the place actually had a use. I wouldn’t have been able to get down there if they didn’t exist.  
The atrium that we entered was massive, but I didn’t have much time to look around before getting dragged off to one of the side hallways, the walls marked with the word armory. Walking in and turning we enter what looks like a large office connecting into the back of the armory itself. “This is where our quartermaster resides, she’s supposed to be here right now, give me a minute.” He shouts something in their native tongue and a minute later another eliksni comes skittering out of one of the crevices. “This is Captain Segris, she works as our quartermaster and she also repairs our smaller arms. You’ll probably spend a rather large chunk of your time here, working with her.” 

I could tell she was giving me a look over, the second her eyes caught eyes of the banged up and rusty armor that I was wearing, she let out a hiss of anger “Is that seriously all your ghost gave you? We don’t have any spare armor that’s made to fit on a human body so you’ll have to deal with that until I can either make you something or get that patched back up, it’s up to you on that, but it’ll cost you either way.” The baron looks at me and nods before pulling out a brown bag filled with something and tosses it to her.

“This should cover his cost for any equipment that either has to be made or repaired for now. That is until we start getting him working either with you on supply management or repairing and forging new gear. I’ll leave him with you for the next half hour before I take him to get checked by the doctor, please do not kill him before we can get him all set up.” Without missing a beat she flips him off while he's walking away. 

| Kaliks-Fel, 2135AD,2157CE. Sokolov’s pov |  
“Montgomery! Ulan! The two of you are late to your own funeral, you nearly missed the eulogy Saint-14 wrote for you, he’s starting now.” The words came out of my mouth before I could even think about stopping them, earning me a kick in the shin by not only Phylaks but Cayde as well, also a chuckle from Andal. Grabbing a nearby bottle, I hold it out for him to take. 

“Wh-what happened? The last thing I remember was me loading a new cell into my Bastion, fighting alongside the- We all fell didn’t we?” His question forces a sad smile to form on my face. Waving the bottle in my hand at him, I answer “You’ll need this for later, just know that the others are on their way.”

He sits down at the opposite side of the table, head in his hands and clearly upset, we could hear Saint-14 in the background talking about the titles that Montgomery held, starting with Crota’s End and ending at the Hero of the Red War. More members of the fireteam enter through the door and join us at our table, a couple of eliksni and a few humans from Shepard's crew do as well, but it seems as if most of them are still waiting outside. 

“You heard Saint, Shepard. You and your friend's story doesn’t end here. Feel that sword in your hands, feel the weight of the blade, the texture of the handle, the sharpness of it. And rip your way back into reality! let loose thy talons upon the Darkness!”

I jolted back to life with the taste of iron in my mouth, spitting into the bucket next to me I ran my hands through my hair. “Who the hell was Shepard, who the hell is any of those faces that I saw in that vision?” I feel my anger growing with more and more of the unanswerable questions that I think of.

Asking Zexvo how long I was in that vision before being resurrected revealed that I was only in that state for a few minutes but It felt like hours. Asking her to transmat out a couple pieces of paper and a pen I get to work writing down all the details of what I saw and heard. My hangover made me work slower than normal but I had no regrets other than getting beat by a baron younger than me.


	7. An intermission.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is just an intermission, your story will continue next chapter

O reader mine, this will take but a moment of your time.  
There are many stories told throughout a lifetime.  
And many of them change each time they are told.  
There are many timelines, one where Eramis would lead a house against the great machine.  
And one where Eramis leads a house to try and regain the favor they once held.  
This is one such timeline, one where characters of stories you know are not the ones told.  
O reader mine, do not hold high expectations, for things will change, for that is life.  
A story must end so that a new one can begin, wouldn’t you agree?  
The world is not black and white, people will die a horrendous death.  
But wouldn’t you already know that, O reader mine?


	8. An Undocumented Tale Part 2 | Chapter 7/8. | Letting old dogs lie | Welcome to dock 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shepard gets his weapon back and also goes hunting in dock 13, his first taste of combat nearly ends up with getting him killed. Meeting a vandal who understands English but can't speak it and tells them to join another house.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Took a bit to get back into the writing mood but I did it. If the paragraphs are frustrating to read I understand, If anyone has anything to say to improve the story I'll take it into consideration.

|Somewhere in the Russian cosmodrome.  2135AD,2157CE. Montgomery Shepard pov’s|

“How was your visit with the resident doctor of our house?” Segris asks once I returned to the armory, a smile clear in her voice. Rolling my shoulder to try and get the numbness to go away. Walking over to one of the weapon lockers and waving her over. 

“Doctor Chakwas is a terrifying woman, I swear to God she wanted to knock me out so she could get all the shots done. I wish I could stay and help with all the tasks that need to be done around the armory, but I need to go patrol and get used to the area nearby. “Was my requisition accepted?” 

She points at the gun case on her table, almost riflesized but closer to a submachine gun. Walking over and opening it, I pulled out the newly refurbished Khvostov 7G-02. Two magazines to go with it as well, already loaded. Putting the mags into my chest rig and detaching the one already in the gun as I put it on my back.

“You’re not going to go with another gun as a backup?” shaking my head she continues. “That’s not a smart thing to do you know.” Nodding my head in agreement, I answered “I don’t want to take too much material away from the House.” 

Exiting the safe zone, I set off to where a target of interest might be. Keeping the 7G-02 in a ready stance, but keeping the barrel pointed down. Continuing on my way to an area labeled dock 13 only 350 meters away. 

Reaching the entrance and crawling under the jammed iron door it’s clear that the place has been repurposed for an outpost. The sound of a wire rifle being charged catches my attention and in the last second I duck down, before the arc round goes past my head. 

Charging my light into a grenade and tossing it only for it to dissipate into a cloud of lightning on contact. An unlucky vandal gets caught in the cloud getting disintegrated on contact with the arc lightning. 

Sending a burst of 7.62x54mmR rounds at the vandal hiding behind concrete before getting shot by another one wielding a shock rifle. Getting knocked flat onto my ass, as I hear the chittering of people crawling on all six. 

Prepping one of the stim shots that I was given, I knew I’d only have a couple of seconds before they were on me. Being able to aim correctly, I ready myself as the first one runs up on me. It’s upper arms poised in a stabbing motion.

The thing gets hit by a number of 7.62 rounds and it drops. The second one didn’t make the same mistake and started opening fire on me before I could see it. An arc bullet slams into the ground next to my chest, an inch left and I would’ve been hit. 

I felt my light flare and could smell arc burning through skin, a charged bolt of lightning came out of my hand and it floated around the corner hitting the eliksni. Another one being disintegrated. 

Standing up and checking around the corner, seeing nothing there I feel safe enough to step out of the cover of the concrete barricade. Checking on the vandal that got shot I noticed they were still breathing. 

Reaching down and grabbing one of its arms it’s breath hitched as I pulled it out of the puddle of blood it was making. It weakly tried pushing me away with it’s lower arm but it felt more like a light brush.

Propping its back against the wall I kneel in front of it. Stim shot in my left hand while the right holds them down. “Do you understand English” I ask it, not expecting a reply. Only to get a nod from them.

“You understand what I’m doing right?” I ask receiving another nod. One of its arms raised up to the light and I caught sight of an area where I could safely inject the stimulant.

“I’m trusting you that you won’t betray my trust and turn on me when my back’s turned.” it nods once. “Do you know of House Gold?” it nods twice. “Go to it and get yourself patched up. Join it instead of being in a house that’ll use you as cannon fodder.” 

The vandal nods one last time before speaking in broken English “Riksis, archon priest, next room.” They try standing up only to nearly fall over before I grab their arm to help support them.


	9. An Undocumented Tale Part 2 | Chapter 9. | Bask ye samplers | First flight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Valentyn's pet project finally takes flight, Sokolov realizes that each time they jump across the galaxy he get's to have the fun job of refueling the ship's jump cells. The quarians start to learn more about the people of house light.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So my beta reader gave up and longer is interested in reading so no beta now. I got uninterested in the story for a while but I want to continue writing so I'm going to anyways.

|Terror of Luna - Kilimanjaro superdreadnought. 2135AD,2157CE Sokolovs pov|

Walking up the steps that lead to the bridge I watch as we slowly leave the planet’s surface, the sight of Europa slowly leaving view. Entering the bridge proper I watch as the cameras reset to get a good view of the planet as we break atmo.

Making my way over to stand beside Valentyn he nods as I slide into the first captains seat. Grabbing the data pad held out to me I give it a quick read before looking out to space. The window shields close and the backup camera system kicks in.

I feel the ship shudder as it fully exits the atmosphere of Europa. Valentyn brings up the star chart and passes it to me, nodding for me to take the lead. “Navigation, prepare a jump to the Dholen system. Everyone else prepare for the first jump she makes.” 

The feeling of unease never leaves my stomach as the ship enters faster than light. The prototype drive hums through the entire ship as we make our way across the known galaxy. We drop out of FTL and the drive suddenly stops. 

I hear multiple forms of swearing before I’m called to the hangar bay. I take my leave and another captain takes my place. Taking the lift down I’m met by chaos as people run around the hangar attaching drive cells to two sepias.

Baron Praksis waves me over to one of the planes, the workers walking away to finish up the second one. “The drive is completely out of fuel so we’re currently only able to fly with our thrusters, that’s where you, Baron Sokolov, and young captain Patrick come in hand.” 

I swear once I realize what we have to do. I call Patrick down as I get ready for take off, going through all the checks multiple times while also checking the heat shields. Golden age tech is great but it can only survive a couple minutes in heat hotter than 10 thousand degrees. 

“Hey Patrick, this’ll be a story to tell our children about won’t it?” I shout to him as my helmet snaps in place, the mouth portion hisses shut and the comms kick to life. <> I say as my hatch closes. 

With all the ground crew out of the way the two of us set off. Never deviating from the flight path calculated by our ghosts for fear of being shot down by the quarians. <> Patrick's voice breaks the silence.

<> I say as I fiddle with the controls a bit, switch on and off systems that did and didn’t need to be active. 

|Quarian ship the Tonbay. 2135AD,2157CE. 3rd person omniscient.|  
“Another two objects just appeared on screen, seems like they are a part of that large ship. Cyber warfare systems report that we’ve broken into their communications, orders admiral?” 

The bridge crew watch as the admiral looks at the data pad in her hand, “Relay all of it into my room, I need to meet with the other admirals. And with that the crew gets back to work while the admiral takes her leave.


	10. An Undocumented Tale Part 2 | Chapter 10/11. | first impressions are important | Knocking on the mercenaries door.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shepard meets up with his sister and a couple of her friends and a vanguard to try and take down a legendary eliksni mercenary. Sokolov and Patrick might get in severe trouble, and will Shepard ever pick a name for his ghost or will he just be called ghost?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I started getting back into writing and in two days I got 2051 words done, although once I post the finished chapter it will hopefully be longer. This might be the last chapter for the second act. Who knows? Not me that's for damned sure.

| Dholen. 2135AD,2157CE. Sokolovs pov. | 

I watch as the sepia’s camera setup starts to tint, the sun becoming less bright as the machines start kicking up. <<What do you mean by “The younger warminds of old” I thought that Rasputin was the first warmind constructed?>>

Making sure that the plane was on the correct path so I could have my attention elsewhere I asked Zexvo to pull up all the information that we have on the Z.O.E projects and the little bit of information we have on the Intercorporate War.

<<During the later 90’s Grunder industries designed an a.i known as the zone of endless, shortened to Z.O.E. The information we have on the intercorporate era is lacking and I don’t know if it’s worth talking about.>>

I watch as the ship's cells show that they’re slowly filling up, a couple warnings about if I got any closer the sun would burn the sepia to a crisp. <<What was the intercorporate era?>> I laugh a bit and give the few documents we have a quick rundown. 

<<The intercorporate era was when the earth was controlled by two companies, both trying to one up each other. This lasted from the 40’s all the way up until the 90’s. When the clovis bray company put an end to it.>> Pulling up another document I continue.

<<After the short period of post war reconstruction America and Canada formed a coalition, later the two of the countries joined and became the North American federation, Russia, China and the Koreas joining later to become one massive body.>> Finishing up everything we know I expected the topic to end.

<<So your distrust of a.i stems from the past?>> This boy is getting on my last nerves. <<No my distrust of a.i stems from what happened to the iron lords. Do you know why only a few iron lords live?>> I ask.

<<Because they messed with Rasputin and he defended himself?>>

<<No, because they wanted to do something for humanity, to rebuild from the collapse and that led them to siva. It’s a miracle that lord felwinter survived the injuries he sustained, if it wasn’t for his ghost felspring surviving what rasputin threw at them they would’ve perished.>>

<<How it’s it Rasputins or any a.i’s fault for what happened to the iron lords? They fucked up and made him feel like his back was to the wall, what else was he supposed to do? Let the lords pillage things from him like he didn’t matter?>>

‘You guys are doing good, from what we can tell the quarians listening in on our comms aren’t going to instantly shoot us down now if we try and make contact with them, keep up the work.’ Zexvos voice fills the cockpit.

<<It’s his fault because he nearly killed his own son, Felwinter is Rasputin’s son and he nearly killed him because he saw Felwinter as property that if he couldn’t own, nobody would. Out of 17 Iron lords only 5 of them live, and out of the 9 wolves only two live to this day. So yeah I’m distrustful of a.i after watching an entire group of light bearers nearly get wiped out.>>

Our batch of cells finish charging and the both of us break off from the sun. That is until multiple contacts pop up on radar, all flying quarian iff’s from the scans. <<Bossman we’re getting flagged like a guardian in Old Chicago, I think they want us to cease movements.>>

<<Cease movements, I don’t want us to get gundowned and find out what happens when you set off something that fuels a ship. Have we gotten- Getting hailed now, playing it over comms.>> I’m sweating bullets just thinking about how terrible this could get at any second.

<<So we just follow them to their ship and we won’t get killed? That's simple.>> The two of us change our trajectories to follow that of the quarian’s flight lead. I could see the ship we’re being led to getting closer and closer over the next few minutes before we get told to stop. 

The next few minutes fly by in a fury, that is until we get grounded on one of the ships. A firing line surrounds both of our ships and it’s clear if we make one misstep we’re going to become past on the floor. 

Slowly I push the canopy open using my lower arms, while my upper arms are stretched out above my head. The people around us visibly tighten their grips around their weapons, Patrick follows suit once I’m fully exposed.

I use my bottom set of arms as a support to lift myself up out of the seat. Moving ever so slowly out of the plane some of the guards move forward, guns still aiming at us. One of the guards step forwards and shouts something while pointing at us and then the floor.

Dropping down onto my knees first before going prone, Patrick doing the same. I can feel some form of handcuffs being put around my wrists, the upper ones being locked to the lowers. The two of us get pulled up roughly and I get pushed forwards, with a gun pressed into my back. 

“Never once did I think that in my few years of captaincy did I think we’d be arrested-” Patrick gets smacked with the stock of a rifle before he could continue. One of our captours mumbling something before we continue moving. 

The two of us are forced into a giant circular room. 4 people standing below a fifth. I feel the cuffs around my wrists loosen before being removed completely. I can faintly make out what they’re saying but the translator’s still new.

“Baron, do you understand what’s being said?” Patrick whispers to me. “Yes and I don’t like any of it.” The one called “Admiral Xen” points at me for a moment as one of the others crosses their arms.

“That thing is likely an a.i, I mean just look at the differences between the two. And as such it’s a risk to our people and needs to be put down.” I roll my eyes before putting my head into my lower arms. 

“We will have none of that Admiral. Even if it was an a.i would you risk us going to war with a race that can field a ship that large? Our race would get destroyed in minutes!” The bickering of these people are going to get Patrick and I killed.

Yawning loudly I tried to get the admiral's attention, and it worked “Why exactly are young Captain Patrick and I being held prisoner?” I miss seeing faces cause I can’t understand anything from their body language.

“The two of you are being held prisoner because you pose a danger to the fleet, machine.” “Admiral Xen enough. She’s correct that the two of you are being held because you pose a significant threat to the fleet.” I ignore the blatant disrespect from this Xen person.

“Why are you in our system alien?” Well that question makes it easier to open diplomatic ties with them I guess. 

“We’re in your system because we wanted to open diplomatic ties with you. Our race has been watched by the citadel council for a long time apparently and we want someone we know that we can trust out here.” 

  
“And how do we know you’re not just batarian slavers trying a new tactic, or even worse geth trying to infiltrate into our people?” 

“The two of us are soldiers, not diplomats. All I can do to try and prove that the two of us aren’t slavers or geth is to show my face. Do not worry, guardians like me and the young captain here cannot get or transmit illnesses, our systems kill them faster than they can take root.” 

I summon solar energie around me before taking off my helmet, the fire licks at my armor but leaves no scorch marks, either on me or on the ground. My bottom set of arms releases the clamps that seals my suit and helmet together.

While my upper pair slowly pulls off my helmet. Some of the guards around us readying their weapons as my helmet comes off fully. After a few seconds I put my helmet back on as the fire dies out.

“That's all I can do to try and prove that the two of us aren’t apart of slavers. No tricks, no lies, no nothing. That’s all I can do unless you allow me to get those versed in diplomacy here to vouch for the two of us.”

| Old Russia 2135AD 2157CE  Montgomery Shepards pov. |

“Travelers forsaken hell Shepard, I’m surprised you managed to kill an Archon priest when you’re only two days old.” Baron Friknes says as I enter the quarters made for the barons of the house.

I drop onto one of the couches nearby and rest my eyes, the baron walking off to grab something before returning. “Want to have a drink to celebrate your first success as a risen?” Nodding I take one of the glasses handed to me.

“You know that vandal you sent our way made it here, they were bleeding pretty badly but they survived. Want to tell me why you spared them while others would’ve just putten them down without a thought?”

I down my glass before talking “I saved them because it was the right thing to do. I know what would’ve happened if they returned to house devils alive.” I was going to continue before Ghost alerted me of a message that he received from another ghost.

“I apologize Baron Friknes, but it seems as if someone I know needs to speak with me.” He nods in understanding and walks me to the door. Exiting the room I walked to a secluded place. 

“Ghost, who is it?” “It’s your sisters ghost, and she wants to speak with you about something, that's all it says besides a set of coordinates in Chile, I think that's the location of the last city!.” 

“I’ll bite, send her a message saying we're coming but it might take a while, little light.” “Do not call me that.” Ghost looks at me and I can tell how annoyed he is because of that little pet name.

Walking to the hanger I watch as the finishing touches are done with my ship, the nsl drive that I grabbed from the dead priest being fitted so that I can go from planet to planet. I thank the splicer who was working on it and handed them a bag of glimmer. 

Hopping into the ship and taking off from the pad I punch in the cords that I was given and close my eyes, the sound of rain pelting the ships window gives me a soothing feeling, that is until a lightning bolt shoots down alongside the ship and barely misses us. 

“Unknown ship report.” “I’m a freshly risen guardian and my ghost told me to head to the last city. This is the last city right?” Fuck I hope that passes and we don’t get shot down “Hmmm, land at the given cords and meet up with the vanguard.” 

“Ghost, where exactly are the cords that my sister sent us?” I hear him make a humming sound for a moment. “They lead to the area marked as the plaza, I take it we’re not meeting the vanguard yet?” 

“Yeah little light, let's go see what my sister wants first.” Following the waypoint leads to a ramen shop, my sister and a couple other’s sitting around on the stools. “Ah there he is, Revenant told me you were coming but I didn’t believe her when she said it. Come take a seat with us”

I take a seat alongside one of the others, a glass of water gets put before me by the owner of the stand. “So you got leave from your little group to come out here?” I rest my head against the counter.

“I just killed an archon priest, I think the client will be perfectly fine without me there.” She nods for some reason. “Onto the introductions. This here is Andal Brask, hunter vanguard. Shiro-4 Vanguard scout and cayde-6 another hunter.”

“The reason why I asked you to meet up with us was because there’s a mission and we need a fifth for it. What do you say?” I think it over for a minute before semi making my mind up. 

“Depends on the target, no civilians.” “Do you know the fallen mercenary named Taniks the scarred?” “He’s one of my clients' targets, I was waiting to get more skilled before trying to take him down though.”

  
  



	11. An Undocumented Tale Part 3 | Chapter 12/13. | Political intrigue (not) | Early morning in the tower

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sokolov and Patrick sits through the politics at work, Sokolov only interrupting once. Shepard wakes up with Cayde pulling a prank on him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this one took me a while, just didn't feel like writing for a bit before I decided to say "Screw it I want to get this done" and so I started writing again, I had a completely different way I wanted to go around the first section. Politics is something that I'm into and wanted to have it be "somewhat realistic" that didn't work and so I went with my heart.

| Tonbays hanger, 2135AD,2157CE Sokolov's pov |

A bang rings out as a rivet pops off of the craft Patrick and I are working on. Both of us work on pulling the fuselage, once that was out we started on stripping the craft. Patrick banging his head on the hull when he rises.

Once we get the fuselage and other parts we’ve stripped into a pile Patrick looks at me. “Sokolov did you really have to pull off your helmet? You know these people are deadly allergic to anything not cleaned.” 

“Yeah well that was the only way I could get that one to listen, and did you not notice the fires flowing around me?” I take inventory of all the parts we’ve stripped “It’s not like we can get them sick anyways, hell all we need to do now is wait until our diplomat gets here”

I run my hand alongside the wing of the craft, arc is not something I regularly use but it comes in handy when you’re stripping something. I feel the eyes of the guards who’re assigned to watch over us.

It takes a while but with Patrick and I using our arc energy we cut a clean line between the hull and the wing, it almost slams down onto the deck of the ship before we catch it. One out of two wings done.

“You’d think they wouldn’t allow prisoners to work on something like this? Pretty sure there’d be a way to rig this to blow.” “Shut your mouth before you get us in trouble man” Patrick laughs as we start working on the second wing.

“Hey Patrick, isn’t that one of our ships?” I ask pointing at what looks like a skiff coming closer. The ship we’re working on completely ignored as the skiff gets closer.  
The skiff gets closer and I can see the black and silver details on it. “Wait, that's the Baron’s special skiff, I thought only Variks and the security team were coming.” My heart drops once the ship enters the hanger. 

It lands? I’ve never seen a skiff actually land, just hovering while the troops disembark. 3 eliksni climb out of the ship and set up a small perimeter before a much larger and a vandal exits. The last one to exit was a human wearing the same colors of the ship.

The guard tasked with watching us hands us over to our people, one of the vandals sticking close to me and the other two sticking close to the other barons. “You’ve been prisoners for nearly an hour and a half and you’ve already revealed that you’re guardians? Really Sokolov?”

“Look it was the only way I could get that one admiral to listen that I wasn’t a machine, ok? Anyways I’m pretty sure the admirals want to talk with you.” A quarian marine comes up to us, his red, brown and silver armor standing out.

Completely ignoring everyone else he comes up to Valentyn and says something my translator couldn’t understand but something that he does, waving for us to follow as he sets off to the hall we went to the first time.

There's even more guards this time though I should’ve expected that. Variks being the first one to enter. Followed shortly by the rest of us. God this is going to be a long and boring few hours.

“The admiralty calls this season to order, the delegation of these two “Houses” state your case on why you’re here” There's murmuring in the conclave but the admiralty board doesn’t seem to care. 

“Our houses offer many things to the quarian people, from supplies, aid, support. New ships, friends in a universe that would rather see you fail. There is much more that could be said.” Variks makes a good diplomat, his usual accent doesn’t make an appearance throughout the entire thing.

“Oh and we should believe you why? Many people have said the same only to end up betraying us to batarians or other slavers.” Admiral Han'Gerrel seems to be the paranoid one not willing to trust us yet.

“Why lie to people we share much the same with? Eliksni lost homeworld to common enemy. Know pain, yes .” Ah there we go, his accents back.  
“Doubtful that you would know the same pain as us losing our homeworld and being denied from settling on any other planet because of a single mistake that our ancestors made.” Admiral Zaal'Koris seems to be the second 

I step forward, standing next to Variks. “Humanity is barely standing strong with roughly a population of 50 million, our homeworld burns and we’re constantly attacked by those who would see us die. Our colonies have been burnt to the ground, we’ve lost nearly all of our history, I think I can safely say that both of our races know the pain that you feel.” Stepping back I give a quick apology to Variks for interrupting him.

There's a couple more murmurs in the crowd before Variks continues “As Baron Sokolov says, we know your pain, that is why we want to be allies, you have seen our ship, can you say you can build the same? Think about what we can do for you.”

None of the admirals respond to that and the crowd’s murmuring gets louder. That is until one of the captains in the conclave asks something “Why would your people even offer us anything? We are seen as rats by everyone else, so why?”

“Why wouldn’t we support those who have had such hardships as we have? None of us lie when we say we share the same problems, I will say it again, we offer much to you with little in return.”

“This meeting will be entering recess. The admiralty will think about what you have offered and come up with a decision by the end of it. Everyone here is dismissed for now.” Admiral Shala’Raan announces. 

“By the traveler I remember why I skip out on political talks whenever I’m invited” I moan as we make our way out of the room. Some of the quarian captains were standing around talking with one another.

“We should probably talk with some of the captains, getting one or two on our side would probably help with getting admirals to agree to our terms. Sokolov and Phylaks, do you two mind making sure the planes are green? Patrick and Variks you’re with me. Lets go” 

| The last city, 2135AD,2157CE, Montgomery Shepard's pov|  
“Don’t you dare Cayde.” “You couldn’t stop me if you tried Andal” “I swear to the traveler, cease and desist!” I’m about to just roll over and go back to sleep before I hear a loud bang right next to me and I snap up. 

Before I realized it my sidearm was in my hand, aiming at the ass of a man named Cayde-6. I was about to pull the trigger before it clicked that this was a prank of his. I make sure that the safety gives an audible click as I turn it on. 

Cayde slowly backs up out of the room and I can hear the laughter of others, Andal Brask looking inside of my room before turning back to him and a very loud slap can be heard, I get out of bed and I put my hat on, the leather brim shining. 

“Mornin Shep, sorry for how Cayde woke you up, man does this for every new fireteam member.” Shiro explains, eating a bowl of cereal somehow. I regret letting my sister talk me into crashing at her shared apartment.

Making a mmm sound I go to the fridge and look for food, grabbing a box of half eaten chicken and rice I sit down at the table. An alarm goes off and my sister comes out of her room. Her alarm goes flying into a trashcan. 

“We’ve got 3 hours before we have to set out for the moon, I say enjoy the time we have before we set off on what could possibly be a suicide mission” Andal says while checking his sniper, the white paint shining. 

“I’ll be in my room getting my guns ready, the armorer was kind enough to refurbish my gun when they took me in.” I say as I make my way into the room I took, shutting the door and getting to work on my rifle. 

I forgot to do so before actually making my way to the tower so I started working on dissembling the gun, once that was done I started cleaning the parts of any gunpowder residue. Once that was done I pulled out my shock pistol.

I hear the door open and my sister walks in. “Nice shock pistol, take it off someone or they give it to you?” I smile, already knowing my answer by heart. 

“I took it from an archons dying hand, called it the devil's promise. I got an exotic shard and popped it in and it named itself the dregs promise. I think that’s a better name for it.” It hums in agreement.

“How. In. The- you know what, I’m not surprised, you always found the good stuff whenever we went loot searching. We’ve got about 30 minutes left before we set off, can your ship make jumps?” 

“No my ship can’t, the archon sadly didn’t have any working nls drives, he had a bunch of broken ones though.” 

“You’re riding with me, come on, the hangar’s not far but I need to get you set up first. The others have already set out so come on.” She almost pulls me out of the apartment and drags me down to the hangar.


	12. An Undocumented Tale Part 3 | Chapter 14/15. | Midafternoon panic.  | Fun times on the moon.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The terror of juno gets spotted by the Turian fleet, makes an jump to benard's runaway star and then to the sol system. Shepard and the small group of hunters learn that Taniks might be more than just what he seems.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I based the entire taniks fight after one of the encounters with randoms I had. our entire strike team was just hunters and someone got phalanxed by Taniks during the fight and I thought hey why not just have Cayde get slammed into a wall.

“Why is your ship purple?” I ask as we get next to it. Bits of pink makes it into a polka dot like pattern. Looking inside of it it’s so much more spacious than my arcadia jumpship. 

“Why can’t it be pink huh? Now come on we got a job to do.” She leads to the front of it, the ships like a small mobile home compared to that of the small one seater that I got used to. The chairs are even made of real leather. 

| Tanboy, 2135AD,2157CE Sokolovs pov | 

A ping pops up on my hud blocking half of my view. The Terror of Luna just detected multiple jumps into the system. All ships flying turrian IFFS. This could turn into a bloodbath quickly if they decide to shoot first and ask questions later. 

More pings, apparently it’s a rather large fleet, 40 ships total compared to our one. Even with the amount of weapons on the ship we’d be put to rout and the crew no doubt knew this as well. They can’t even make a jump to ftl because the damned fuel needed to do so is with us. 

Not caring about diplomacy anymore I sprint to the hangar to be met with Patrick already getting strapped in and shutting his cockpit. I jump once, landing on the second step and I give a short little double jump into the seat. Slamming on my harness I shut the cockpit and heat up my thrusters. 

The people around our ships clear out and I watch as my father and the others who came with him board their ship. Patrick gives a yee haw as we fly out of the hangar, our ships burning a bright green as the plasma we carry intermixes with the regular fuel. 

<<Dump the fuel. Reload with the bomber armaments. And prepare for combat. Understood Patrick?>> I enable the ships hud and get confirmation with Patrick. Our planes are flying side by side. We reach the hangar in only a few minutes, followed by Valentyn and his ship. 

I unhook myself and pop the cockpit open, jumping out I see that the others of fireteam galm are setting up their own ships. “My team report to the bridge, Wardog and Garuda, both you guys get loaded up and wait for orders.” I shout out as some of the ground crew starts unloading the fuel off my craft.

By the time we got to the bridge we'd already started drifting away from the quarian ships. 8 of our 120mm autocannons and 5 of the 50mm’s aimed at some of the turian ships as we try to make distance.

“Get our main guns on their command ship, our autocannons won’t do anything but bounce off the shieldings. I want bombers on the ready. How’re we doing with the fuel situation?” 

Valentyn is spitting out orders and questions while I set my team up with the weapons, Larry and I picking to operate the spinal mounted cannon while the other 2 pick a 120mm “These guns need to be updated. There's no way we can penetrate those shields without the use of the spinal cannons.” 

“Baron Valentyn, we’re getting hailed, orders?” A crewman asks. “Answer it. Have it played here. And get us ready to jump.” The controls of the spinal mounted cannon fights me every second as I try to aim it at the nearest ship. 

A turian shows up on screen, their face kind of reminds me of the birds on Nessus. “Quarians- Hmm you’re not quarians. What are you, some type of asari? No you’re not aren’t you.” 

Valentyn smiles, the turian doesn’t look pleased. “You’ll find out soon, but for now? Well we’ll leave you with this. Don’t even try to follow us. Activate the drives and get us out of here!” And before the turians could try anything we jumped to ftl. 

The windows shut and camera’s disabled to make sure none of us got blinded by the bright light. Unlike shown in movies and shows like Star Trek and the Star wars series it’s not just white or blue lines it’s just a mass of white light that will blind you if you decide to look outside. 

“Broadcast this to the rest of the crew. We’re dropping out in Benard’s runaway star. Then we’re continuing back to sol, bomber squadrons and fighter squadrons stand down.” Valentyns voice booms across the ship. 

I lean back into my seat. The leather backrest feels good as all the stress leaves my body. The camera’s slowly turn back on as we leave ftl, the red star staring at us as we prepare to jump again. None of the turian ships followed us from what we can tell.

“The quarians know where to meet us next right?” Valentyn nods to my question. “They know to meet us at the cords I gave them, and to bring only one ship to avoid suspicion.” I pull out a pack of lucky strikes and I hear Zexvo scolding me for it.

We’ll be home in an hour from the calculations given by the navigators. I’m sure nothing bad has happened in the past day and a half that we’ve been gone. I mean, I’m absolutely sure nothing could’ve happened.

| The moon, 2135AD,2157CE, Montgomery Shepards pov | 

“Take him the fuck down!” Was the shout that had been given. Three of us opened fire on the merc named Taniks. While the other 2 handle his guards, the guards fall quickly due to the combined firepower of two guardians.

The steel pipe Taniks was standing next to shatters as it gets riddled with 7.62x54mm. He roars before teleporting somewhere else. Cayde gets flung into a wall when he got too close to the merc. 

I summon an orb of lightning and throw it at a captain, the thing slams into him and it explodes, killing the captain almost instantly. Cayde gets back up after a few seconds and starts opening fire on another of the captains.

I mag dumped into Taniks, the first 25 rounds do little more than damage his shield but the last 5 tracers do visible damage to him. I don’t have enough time to reload before getting pelted by melted shrapnel. 

My shield holds but I’m pulled into cover by Shiro. I thank him as I reload and pop out of cover again. Opening firing on taniks before I hear the pop of a golden gun behind me. 3 shots go sailing into taniks dropping him. 

“Deal with the rest of his crew, then we’ll make sure he’s dead for the last time.” Andal says as he reloads his sniper. The eliksni still alive don’t stay that way for long. Especially with guardians set on making sure a single person stays dead.

The last vandal drops dead and as far as we know Taniks lays dead as well. The others have a discussion on how to deal with him but I feel something off. I  unconsciously give my sister a look and she seems to agree.

“It’s not just me who feels some sort of light coming from him am I?” I ask, the others look at my funny. That is before Shiro speaks up as well.

“I can feel it as well but it feels off.” There's a ghost somewhere, I just realized it. But where? “Do you guys think he could be a risen?” 

All of us think about that for a moment and I contemplate what that could mean. Why would the traveler resurrect someone like Taniks? And if it did, why is he still murderous like he was before cayde put him in the dirt the first time.

“If he is it might just be a safer bet to take his corpse and keep an eye on it. I know this sounds strange but if he is a risen his ghost will have to resurrect him where his body is.” Andal says, already working on moving his corpse.

\Time just, three hours, Last city./

We put Taniks corpse into a cell. Nobody is actually allowed near the cell for the next few days. If it turns out that he’s not actually a risen (although we still feel the same thing we did hours ago) his corpse will be buried in an area that can be watched constantly.

The five of us are sitting around a table at a ramen shop. Cayde and Andal eating the same spicy ramen, Shiro eating something called a Nagasaki Champion, and my sister and I something named Sapporo ramen. 

“Big boss is calling us, says he needs to talk. Though it’s not private so if you want I can answer it here.” Ghost shows up, his shell spinning as he talks. I nod finishing up my dinner, pushing the empty bowl away from me.

“Shepard, I heard you killed an Archon Priest. Any other good news recently?” Sokolov asks, his voice somewhat distorted over the communication channel the ghosts are using. I was about to answer before Andal said something.

“Sokolov, that you? You still owe me and shaxx glimmer you know? Also the kid helped us put down Taniks.” I’d never have guessed that someone like Sokolov would owe people money, not after he paid for the refitting of my gear and a new set of armor. 


End file.
